1) Anyone who preaches false doctrine (i.e., no specific individual), as in early Christianity.
2) The papacy, as argued by anti-Catholic Protestant reformers from the 1500s to the early 20th century.
3) A specific Antichrist to come just before the end of the world, to be accepted by the Jews and enthroned in the temple at Jerusalem, as created by Francisco Ribera, a 16 century Spanish Catholic Jesuit priest, specifically to counter the anti-Catholic Protestant theology on the subject (exchanging anti-Catholicism for populist anti-Semitism? How typical.).

Ribera's antichrist is identified by the following traits:

Quote:

Persecute and blaspheme the saints of God.

Rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.

Abolish the Christian religion.

Deny Jesus Christ.

Be received by the Jews.

Pretend to be God.

Kill the two witnesses of God.

Conquer the world.

Likewise, Ribera was the first to formulate the idea that the antichrist was an apocalyptic concept that had no bearing on the Middle Ages or the papacy, but, instead to the distant future. Ribera's antichrist theology was widely absorbed into Protestantism with the advent of the influential Protestant Scofield Reference Bible that was published in the immediate years before World War I. Thus, Scofield's pessimistic view regarding our future resonated well with the horrors that people experienced during the war, and it was this Bible that permanently introduced an obsession with "the end times" into American fundamentalist Christianity.

So, basically, by all reasonable standards, Obama is not "The Antichrist."

1) Anyone who preaches false doctrine (i.e., no specific individual), as in early Christianity.
2) The papacy, as argued by anti-Catholic Protestant reformers from the 1500s to the early 20th century.
3) A specific Antichrist to come just before the end of the world, to be accepted by the Jews and enthroned in the temple at Jerusalem, as created by Francisco Ribera, a 16 century Spanish Catholic Jesuit priest, specifically to counter the anti-Catholic Protestant theology on the subject (exchanging anti-Catholicism for populist anti-Semitism? How typical.).

Ribera's antichrist is identified by the following traits:

Likewise, Ribera was the first to formulate the idea that the antichrist was an apocalyptic concept that had no bearing on the Middle Ages or the papacy, but, instead to the distant future. Ribera's antichrist theology was widely absorbed into Protestantism with the advent of the influential Protestant Scofield Reference Bible that was published in the immediate years before World War I. Thus, Scofield's pessimistic view regarding our future resonated well with the horrors that people experienced during the war, and it was this Bible that permanently introduced an obsession with "the end times" into American fundamentalist Christianity.

Can't say that I'm familiar with Ribera, I'll have to look into him.

Whether Revelations deals with Christians in it's first-century setting being warned about a coming prosecution at the hand of Caesar or is a narrative of world events with much yet to play out, it is highly symbolic literature and must be read as such.

Quote:

So, basically, by all reasonable standards, Obama is not "The Antichrist."

1) Anyone who preaches false doctrine (i.e., no specific individual), as in early Christianity.
2) The papacy, as argued by anti-Catholic Protestant reformers from the 1500s to the early 20th century.
3) A specific Antichrist to come just before the end of the world, to be accepted by the Jews and enthroned in the temple at Jerusalem, as created by Francisco Ribera, a 16 century Spanish Catholic Jesuit priest, specifically to counter the anti-Catholic Protestant theology on the subject (exchanging anti-Catholicism for populist anti-Semitism? How typical.).

Ribera's antichrist is identified by the following traits:

Likewise, Ribera was the first to formulate the idea that the antichrist was an apocalyptic concept that had no bearing on the Middle Ages or the papacy, but, instead to the distant future. Ribera's antichrist theology was widely absorbed into Protestantism with the advent of the influential Protestant Scofield Reference Bible that was published in the immediate years before World War I. Thus, Scofield's pessimistic view regarding our future resonated well with the horrors that people experienced during the war, and it was this Bible that permanently introduced an obsession with "the end times" into American fundamentalist Christianity.

So, basically, by all reasonable standards, Obama is not "The Antichrist."

Just for the record this is hardly anything new. We are, after all, talking about in the president of the United States one of, if not the, most powerful men on the planet. The pope is the other that comes under scrutiny.

George H Bush raised some eyebrows with his New World Order rhetoric (a one-world government thought by some to be a sign of the antichrist).